"We already know that an extraordinary extinction of species is taking place all over the world, breaking vital links in the chain of life. … We are witnessing firsthand a massive disruption of Earth's life systems, and all fingers point to one culprit: man. … we have to live in dynamic collaboration with the plant and animal kingdoms in a healty, life-sustaining environment. … Mankind's superior intellect and deep spiritual heritage will count for naught if we fail in this quest." –Lawrence Anthony

Y’all who didn’t stick around for dinner after the meeting missed a great conversation. Well, ok, perhaps I’m biased, but I’ll bet the taxonomist enjoyed it, too. It was one of these conversations that’s left my brain buzzing and sparking. I kept trying to talk myself out of blogging it, but I failed. When I pause to stare off into space at my desk Wednesday, y’all’ll know what’s on my mind.

For an upcoming presentation, someone suggested that the taxonomist talk about how folks in the tech sector could benefit from taxonomies and indexing.

My coworkers Steven Hammond and Nat Budin created museum curation software called Arti-Facts in the coding competition Rails Rumble over the weekend. When they shared it with us at work today, I realized it might be of interest to a few of you (and not just because the images they use come from an awesome collection of arms and armaments).

Some of the other projects are pretty neat, too: animal shelter software, a game where kids compete against each other to see who does the most chores, an easy way to make conference badges, vacation and travel tools, and, of course, more information and data management options.

Voting is happening through Friday, October 24 (corrected). If you see something you like, make it a favorite.

Addendum 10/25: It looks like my original post was correct (or psychic): judging does go until 23:59 UTC on Sunday, October 26. (Great! Because I forgot to finish voting on 10/24. *sheepish grin*)

Some of the writers that are participating are Susan Minot, Rick Riordan, Norman Foster and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Herbie Hancock is giving one of the keynote speeches.

Also, there’s one Saturday session called Libraries of the Future at 2:15 pm in the Boston Common Carver, 40 Trinity Place:

“In the future, libraries will thrive—although in a variety of new forms. This is the contention made by Jeffrey Schnapp and Matthew Battles, who combine the study of the library’s history with a record of innovation at Harvard’s metaLAB, a research group at the forefront of the digital humanities. In The Library Beyond the Book, they offer a provocative and lively exploration of libraries as hybrid places that intermingle analog and digital formats, paper and pixels. Their scenarios for future libraries imagine them as everything from study centers to social change agents and event-driven knowledge centers. Join the conversation about libraries of the future led by Joshua Glenn, author of Taking Things Seriously and co-founder of the blog HiLobrow.”

My notes from Saturday’s BarCamp Boston 9 sessions and whatnot follow. It’s been a great time so far, as always. I’ve spent more time talking to people than I have sitting in sessions because the conversations have been good and useful.

BarCamp Boston 9 (the area’s largest tech / geek unconference) happens October 11th & 12th* at Microsoft NERD. Plenty of space is still available. That means if you grab as many people as you can, y’all can sway the path of the conference. 😉

Many people think the Web will make libraries obsolete. Well, it’s been 25 years and many changes have happened, but how many libraries have embraced those changes and run with them? How many of us use libraries more because of their digital resources or because we found a pointer to something in a collection while searching the Web or because we can access something remotely through a library’s website?

David writes:

That’s why it’s a tragedy that libraries are barely visible in the new knowledge infrastructure. What libraries and librarians know about books and so much more is too important a cultural resource to lose.

That’s also why we need libraries to be out where ideas and knowledge are being raised, discussed, contested, and absorbed. Everywhere there’s a discussion on the web, everything that libraries know ought to be immediately at hand. Yet this hope for libraries is unlikely to be realized primarily by libraries, for two reasons.

John writes:

[The Web’s] impact is a consequence of the brilliance of the design, how it builds upon other networks, and how it allows for others to build on top of it through new ideas.

As we celebrate twenty five years of the Web and what it has meant to societies around the world, we ought also to consider what we might accomplish in the next twenty-five years. Consider three institutions that have already been changed by the Web and which will no doubt change more in the coming two and a half decades: education, libraries, and journalism. Each of these institutions is essential to healthy democracies and relies upon a web that remains free, open, and interoperable. In an increasingly digital world, the importance of these institutions is going up, not down. And yet, in each case, the Web is too often perceived as a threat, rather than as an opportunity, to these institutions and those who work in them. And if the Web itself becomes closed down, controlled by private parties or by government censorship, we will curtail opportunities for extraordinarily positive social change. With great imagination, compelling design, sound policy, and effective implementation, each of these institutions might emerge stronger and better able to serve democracies than before the advent of the Web.

Both posts are worth a closer look. Some of you will appreciate what John says about journalism and the Web.

I finished reading The Map Thief by Michael Blanding this morning, the account primarily of the actions of map dealer E. Forbes Smiley III and thefts to which he admitted and others attributed to him, mostly in the 2000s. The book reveals a bit about how more support is needed to adequately catalog and care for rare books, manuscripts, and maps to preserve them for the future while making them available now. It’s both a book that is a bit alarming and helpful by teaching how some people steal materials. If I were still the guardian of a collection, I would definitely review practices to figure out how to better protect materials. The book also summarizes the history of map making and certain key maps and takes a look at some institutions Smiley visited.

WordCamp Boston 2014 is being held at the MIT Media Lab on August 23, 2014 while the Contributor Day is being held at the Workbar in Cambridge on August 24, 2014. The cost is $20.00 to attend both days.

Wordcamp, which is held across the country and the world, deals with all aspects of the WordPress blogging program.